Coffee machines

Nespresso stands for “Not
Nespresso stands for “Not espresso”. Don’t go there.

If you have less than £500 to spend, or less than 5square metres of counter space, DON’T buy a coffee machine / all-in-one / espresso machine. You will regret it.

Buy a grinder, eg iberital MC2:

http://www.happydonkey.co.uk/iberital-mc2-grinders/

And an aeropress:

AeroPress

And MOST IMPORTANT, good whole beans – for ease get a subscription, e.g.:

http://www.hasbean.co.uk/collections/subscriptions/products/the-twelve-month-coffee-gift-roasted-beans

If you MUST have espresso, you MUST read this:

http://coffeegeek.com/guides/howtobuyanespressomachine

But note that the coffee, and the grinder, are more important than the machine!

Give me a £2000 espresso machine, pre-ground coffee, or a whirlyblade grinder, and if you ask me to produce something drinkable, I’ll struggle. Give me a £200 machine, a £200 grinder, and £10 of beans, and I’ll fix you a coffee!

An ‘Aeropress’ or a ‘Bialetti
An ‘Aeropress’ or a ‘Bialetti Moka Express’. All the coffee making fun you’ll ever need, and maybe a grinder if you want to buy beans rather than ground.

The Nespresso machines are
The Nespresso machines are extremely handy. If you just want something to press and go, they’ll do you fine. The coffee is alright too.

I suppose one could argue there’s a certain lack of charm to the machines and you might be as well served with a simple cafetiere, depending on what type(s) of coffee you prefer.

I have an Nespresso which
I have an Nespresso which does make great hassle free coffee, the machine looks nice/modern in any kitchen, easy to look after – I do recommend it. However until recently you were stuck with purchasing the ‘pods’ direct from Nespresso only, which is a pain but I believe the patent elapsed last year resulting in Nespresso going to court to keep the patent in place, but this failed. Effectively allowing other company’s (Whitards for one) to produce their own ‘pods’ to fit which is the way to go.

2 points to consider in my opinion:

1. Don’t buy the machine with the attached ‘frother’ it’s £150+! As part of the whole unit if milk spills over onto the base it’s a nightmare to keep clean. After a few months our frother started to burn the milk and was awkward to clean inside the unit which eventually didn’t froth the milk that well.

Buy the stand alone Nespresso machine £70 (I believe there is still a great January offer including pods as a start up package making the machine virtually free!) Then buy Bodum’s own milk frother jug £16 (Amazon) which works by warming the milk in your microwave then ‘hand pump’ to create ‘froth’ – this works so well!! Far better than Nespresso’s frother.

2. Nespresso v Stand alone Italian Coffee machine. Well this depends on how many coffees you make a day, for how many people? One £50 pod order from Nespresso on average ever month does build up over the year then your well on your way to buying a £500-600 machine or even a ‘Rocket’ machine £1k plus over two years.

But as a ‘pod’ system the Nespresso is the best.